


Like you used to do

by endearinglysad



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Wincest - Freeform, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-03
Updated: 2010-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-11 11:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endearinglysad/pseuds/endearinglysad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tries so hard to live a normal life, but he can't let her go and he's really all she ever wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like you used to do

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [genderbenderfic](http://community.livejournal.com/genderbenderfic/)'s [Genderbend Prompt-a-Thon](http://community.livejournal.com/genderbenderfic/24140.html). Title from Alice in Chains’ ["Brother"](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Brother-lyrics-Alice-In-Chains/1BBE57C5EC8E5D164825688F001059FD). So…this pretty much jumps all over the space-time continuum, so I really hope it makes sense. Beta’d by [hopefulwriter27](http://hopefulwriter27.livejournal.com), who is fast like a cheetah and saved this from being one long run-on sentence. Thanks, woman!

School isn’t so bad. It’s only her first day and she’s already gotten to color with brand new crayons, and practice her alphabet (which Dean had taught her a long time ago), and the teacher gave them snacks and read them a story. And then after the story, she has all the kids lie down on big pieces of paper on the floor and she traces their shapes and says that at the end of the year they’ll do it again so they can see how big they’ve grown. Sammy can’t wait to see how much she grows in a year. She even helps the teacher write her name on her paper, and the teacher smiles at her when she draws her _S_ right and not backwards like Simon’s. Simon said he was going to be a doctor when he grew up, but Sammy figures he needs to learn to write first and stop trying to kiss her.

She really doesn’t know why Dean had been so worried this morning.

Plus, last recess is coming up and Sam’s gonna go on the slide. She’d spotted it from the backseat of the Impala when they’d driven up to the school this morning. It was pretty tall, but Dean had taught her to be brave and Dean could probably go on any slide in the world.

After they plant beans in little white cups and place them carefully in all the sunny classroom windows, the teacher helps them clean up and gather their all their stuff, and takes them outside to play until their parents come or it’s time to get on the bus. It turns out that a lot of kids want to use the slide, so Sammy gets in line and waits for her turn. While she’s waiting she counts the steps up to the top, but she stops at seven because that’s pretty high up and she doesn’t want to get scared.

Simon’s in line in front of her, but he tells her that she can take cuts if she’ll give him a kiss. She gets Kaylee to kiss him instead, because she figures it’s better to have to wait for an extra person to go than kiss Simon. She only kisses Dean. And sometimes Dad.

The line’s getting shorter and she starts getting butterflies in her tummy. She thinks about going to play on the swings instead, but Dean had told her that tummy butterflies only flutter when they can’t breathe, and if she just takes a few big breaths, they’ll settle down and go back to sleep. She takes four big breaths before it’s her turn to climb the ladder.

Her foot is on the first step (and there are a _lot _more than seven!) when she hears a familiar honk and the rumbly motor of a 427 power train engine with 385 bhp. She twists her body, both feet firmly planted on the bottom step, hands wrapped tightly around the rails, and looks for Dean. He’s standing by the fence looking at her, Dad in the Impala behind him. He waves when he sees her looking, and cups his hands around his mouth and calls, “Come on, Sammy!”

 

=//=

 

“Come on, Sammy, you’ve gotta learn this.” Dean holds the bow out, waiting for his sister to take it. She refuses to even look at it. God save him from fourteen-year-old girls.

“Says who?”

“Says Dad. Now come on, you can be She-Ra.”

…And there’s the Sammy bitchface. “She-Ra fought with a sword, dumbass. Bow was the one with the bow and he was lame.”

Dean arched an eyebrow at her.

“Shut up.” She stomps forward and snatches the bow out of his hands, nocking the arrow before turning to face the target. Dean can practically see her eyes rolling through the back of her head as she heaves a sigh, raises the bow and draws, sighting down the shaft at the make-shift hay-bale target he’d set up earlier.

Dean hides his smile and steps up behind her. With hands at her hips, he adjusts her stance, twisting her body so one foot moves slightly ahead of the other. “That’s it. Now, raise your elbow—there, that’s good. Now remember, just relax your bow fingers, not your whole arm.”

Sam is stiff as a board in his arms, but she takes a deep breath and lets the arrow fly. The recoil knocks her back against Dean and the arrow _thwacks_ into the hay a good six inches outside the target circle.

“Okay, you gotta relax, Sammy. You’re holding your shoulders too tight.”

“Well, _maybe_ I could relax if you weren’t breathing down my neck!”

“I’m just trying to help you—”

“I don’t want help! I don’t want to do it at all! I’m never gonna need to be able to use a bow.”

“You don’t know that, Sammy. Knowing how to use a bow properly could mean the difference between life and death for any of us. And I’m not just talking about killing monsters. What if we need food? What if we’re lost or living in the woods and we need to hunt to survive?”

“You and Dad already know how. I don’t see why I have to learn too.” But her voice was quieter, less sure.

“What if we’re not there? Or we’re hurt? I’m not always gonna be there, Sam. You’ve got to learn to take care of yourself sometime.”

He suddenly doesn’t want to be around his sister for a while, so he starts back to the house, leaving the detritus of the failed lesson scattered around the yard. But then he stops after a few steps and turns back to her, trying to hide his frustration and disappointment. “I just wish you’d think about someone other than yourself once in a while, Sam.”

He lets himself into the house and looks for something to keep busy. Dad’s got a new carburetor for the Impala in pieces on the kitchen table, so he picks up a wrench and starts working in the quiet house. An hour later when he glances out of the kitchen window, Sam’s still in the yard, pitted target in front of her and an empty quiver at her feet.

 

=//=

 

Dean’s asleep by the time she feels brave enough to leave the tiny bathroom.

_He’s sure got issues with you._

Sam stops at the foot of her brother’s bed and watches him sleep. She’s pretty sure he has no idea about all the things the shifter had said to her while they were tied up in its den. But she’d sat in the car all day, Dean hell bent for anywhere that was _away_, and thought about the truth in the thing’s words.

She watches her brother sleep and knows there’s no way she can make any of it right.

_Where the hell were you?_

Suddenly angry, she pushes Dean’s stolen voice out of her mind and focuses on his real breathing instead. He’s lying on his back on the double bed, chest rising and falling with a slight hitch, like all his rough edges can’t even be smoothed out by sleep, and suddenly she needs to be closer to him. She creeps around to the empty side of the bed—the side away from the door—and crawls under the sheet before she can think about why it’s a bad idea and why she’d left for Stanford in the first place.

She settles on her side as close to Dean as she can get without actually touching. The sheets are still cool on her side of the bed, but she knows that by morning she’ll be curled in a toasty nest of _sleepywarmDean_ that she’ll have to tear herself out of. She resolves to leave the bed well before that happens.

_Sooner or later everybody’s gonna leave me. You left. _

She can’t not touch anymore. The skin around Dean’s eyes is smooth and unmarked, no evidence of their recent battle on his face like it is on hers. Leaning up and over him, she ignores the sting of her own wounds as she runs a gentle fingertip up the bridge of his nose and between his eyebrows, skimming across his forehead and down around to his ear. Dean’s jaw is strong, like Dad’s. She traces along the bone to his chin, stopping on his full bottom lip.

Warm breath teases over her fingers as she traces the graceful curves of his lips, and she thinks about a million smiles and a million words. Her fingers still and she thinks about leaving.

Leaning down, she hovers over his mouth, close enough that she can feel their breaths mingling but not quite close enough to touch.

“Not one hour of my life goes by where I don’t think of you,” she whispers against his mouth, wishing she could push the words into him with her breath.

Closing the distance between them, she brushes a kiss against his lips, the barest touch of skin on skin that slices her through her chest like a jagged blade. Reluctantly, she pulls back, leaves the bed and tucks the blankets around Dean behind her. She crawls between the freezing sheets of her own bed and wonders how long it will be before she can’t leave anymore.

 

=//=

 

Dean doesn’t make it out to California once a month or anything, just…whenever he can. He’s not checking _up_ on Sam, he’s just…checking Sam.

Sam doesn’t look like Sam in the sunlight. She’ll never be a sun-bleached beach bunny—hair and eyes too dark for the Barbie look—but she’s tan now, too much long bronzed body visible under a denim miniskirt and tank top. His Sammy never showed that much skin, and he’s going to fucking kill the next frat-boy douchebag asshole who checks out his sister’s ass as she walks by. He’s let far too many of them pass already.

She blends in here, and no one who spent the night of her sixteenth birthday digging up the corpse and then salting and burning the bones of an eighty-year old miner whose ghost was pick-axing unsuspecting teens should ever _blend in _with the future business leaders of America.

Sam looks like Sam when she’s lovingly sharpening her favorite knife. When she’s bent over a pile of books searching out some new bit of info about werewolves or Shakespeare. When her face is smudged with grave-dirt or she’s stitching up Dean’s newest future scar with her pretty lips in a tight line, holding in the lecture he can tell she’s dying to deliver. Sammy looks like Sam when she’s shouting at Dad, almost daring him to hit her so she’ll have an excuse to leave.

This girl still isn’t his Sam. Dean doesn’t do hope, but he’ll keep checking…whenever he can.

 

=//=

 

When Dean drives away from his sister on a deserted road halfway between Illinois and Indiana, he’s too angry to check his rearview mirror to see if she’s watching him drive away.

But he does wonder if now she knows how it feels to be the one left behind.

 

=//=

 

“Who the hell is this?”

Dean glares at the kid standing behind Sam. He’s almost as tall as Dean, and just barely taller than Sam herself, but built like a truck. Probably some jack-off senior football player looking to get in his sister’s pants. Well, fuck _that_.

He stares the kid down, annoyed when he doesn’t seem too fazed by the challenge. Dean’s eyes never leave the kid’s face, but he isn’t so intent that he doesn’t realize that Sam hasn’t answered him yet. “Sammy?”

Still nothing. He finally breaks eye contact with Sporto to look down at his sister. The Sammy bitchface is in full force, and she’s clearly waiting for his full attention before she speaks.

“_Brian_ is here to study for trig. We’ve got a massive test tomorrow.” She enunciates each word carefully at Dean, as if that was going to stop him from beating this punk’s face in. Brian just smirks and tosses an entirely too-familiar arm over Sam’s shoulders.

And just, _no_.

Sam rolls her eyes and shrugs Brian’s arm off before turning to grace him with a brilliant smile. “Look, just go wait in the kitchen for me, okay? Just through there,” she gestures toward the swinging kitchen door at the end of the hall, pushing him gently forward and away from Dean’s clenched fists.

“No problem. Just don’t be too long, Sunshine,” Brian murmurs, reaching up to smooth and tuck Sam’s shaggy hair behind her ears and send another smarmy glance Dean’s way behind Sam’s back.

Dean pops his knuckles. Sam’s long hand is splayed suddenly across his chest, not holding him back, exactly—just reminding him not to move forward. Both Winchesters wait silently for the scratched kitchen door to swing shut, Dean glaring daggers at Brian’s back the whole time, before facing off. Dean speaks first.

“Come on, Sammy. You know the rules.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll be gone by the time Dad gets home. We’re _just studying_, Dean.”

“Yeah, that dumb jock is clearly just interested in studying with you.”

“He’s not a dumb jock!” she hisses, stepping closer to get in his face. “He’s got the highest grade in the class. He’s here to tutor _me_, okay? So quit being an ass!” She freezes, suddenly realizing that her face is only inches away from Dean’s, her long fingers still spread across his chest, burning through his thin t-shirt.

“Sammy?’ Dean whispers his sister’s name, the broken sound partly catching in his throat, and she jumps back, dropping her arms and gaze.

“Dean…” She rubs fingers across her forehead and he watches her force herself to look at him. Her face is flushed and her eyes are softer than he expected them to be. She sighs. “Look. Just because he wants it doesn’t mean he’s gonna get it. If you’re worried, you can stay in the kitchen with us, but if you’re just going to keep being an ass, you can go to hell.” She turns and starts down the hall, stopping in her bedroom doorway. “I need to…I’m gonna change. Just…be nice for five minutes, okay?” She waits for his terse nod, then closes the door with a quiet _snick._

Dean stares at the door for a minute before heading into the kitchen. _Brian_ is sitting at the ancient kitchen table, artfully slouched over a chair, sipping a beer he’d helped himself to from the fridge. He looks up when Dean comes in, slimy crooked smile falling a bit when he realizes it isn’t his intended audience.

“Hey, bro, no hard feelings, right? I’m just here to study with your sister.” He flashes an insincere smile at Dean and resettles himself in the chair.

Dean’s already moving towards him, his own fake smile much toothier. He plucks the beer from Brian’s hand and sets it calmly on the table, ignoring the spluttering protest, and fists his hands in the collar of Brian’s shirt, pulling the kid toward him. His smile never falters.

“If you touch my sister—today, tomorrow, next week, whenever—I’m going to go to the trunk of my dad’s car and get my favorite hunting knife. Then I’m gonna cut you open, Brian, from the top of your no-doubt tiny dick to your belly button, and I’m gonna reach in and find your small intestine. I’m gonna pull it out, slowly, and then I’m gonna use it to sting you up from the goal post on your football field. Clear enough?”

Dean’s smile becomes more genuine as he watches Brian grow paler with each word. At the kid’s shaky nod, Dean releases his shirt, smoothing it back into place. “And hey, no hard feelings, right? I’m just looking out for my sister.”

Brian stares at him for a full minute before standing up and walking carefully out of the kitchen and down the hall. He ignores Sam as she steps out of her room and calls out to him, and Dean would punch him for that if he hadn’t already made his point. Dean gives Sam his best innocent shrug when she turns baleful eyes on him, and just follows Brian out of the house and onto the front porch, Sam right behind him, calling Brian’s name. He waves and calls out as the kid climbs into the metallic blue mustang squatting in the driveway.

“Have a great day, Brian—I enjoyed our little heart-to-heart!”

See? He can be nice.

 

=//=

 

Dean has removed a heart monitor before. The trick is to be ready to run the second it’s off because those little bastards start screaming quick, and it’s almost impossible to sneak out of a hospital room that’s full of nurses, orderlies and doctors who would all _really_ like you to get back in the bed. Of course, the fact that one was _wearing_ a heart monitor in the first place usually meant running was not really feasible (s_uck on _that_, Sammy_) so Dean has a plan.

The third time the heart monitor goes off, he still has a worried nurse at his side in under twenty-two seconds. The _seventeenth_ time, however, the window is quite a bit longer.

If he’s _going home_, or whatever, well…first he’s going _home_.

 

=//=

 

The lump of muddy leather and denim currently blocking the hallway doesn’t move until Sam crouches down and runs her fingers through blood-soaked hair. She wonders how many people have passed him, slumped against her door, and wonders what they thought. She’d probably laugh if it wasn’t Dean.

His eyes are dull with pain when he looks up at her, but he manages a smile. She doesn’t return it, just keeps methodically petting him, cataloguing cuts and bruises into _wash_,_ stitch up_, and_ oh, fuck. _Luckily, there’s none of the latter, so she stifles her sigh and gets a shoulder under his arm, lifting and hauling 180-pounds of emotional baggage into her dorm room.

The first time Sam had ever taken advantage of Stanford’s rec center she’d been hit on repeatedly by a sweaty gym rat who refused to take a hint. The third time he’d slapped her ass while she was on the treadmill, she’d stopped, motioned for him to follow her and walked calmly to the nearest weight bench. She’d loaded the bar and proceeded to bench press 205 pounds. He’d watched her do twenty reps and then walked away without a word. No one at the gym has bothered her since.

She can lift a lot when she has to.

The room is dimly lit by her tiny desk lamp, but she doesn’t bother to turn on any other lights. The fact that Dean hadn’t simply picked the lock has her worried that she’s missed some more serious injury. She settles him gently into her desk chair and digs out her first aid kit. The rooms in her dorm don’t have private baths, but they do have sinks, so she wets a rag with warm water and starts washing the red crust from Dean’s skin. Wipe, rinse and repeat, shifting or removing clothing as needed, until he looks less like a nightmare and more like her brother.

Dean watches her as she tends to him, eyes on her face instead of the bloody cloth or the needle she pushes through his skin. She got him as clean as she could without hauling him down to the shower (and as much as some of the other girls on her floor might enjoy seeing a naked, soaped up Dean, it wasn’t something she thought she could handle at the moment) and pulls him up out of the chair to strip off the last of his wrecked clothes. Her bed is small, but they’ve shared worse, and she pushes him down onto it, clicks off the tiny lamp, strips down and crawls in behind him. He’s already drifting off, but he turns to her when she wraps her arms around him, head on her breast and arm across her waist, tangling their legs together.

In the morning she’ll find out what did this. Dean will tell her the story and she’ll have a new reason to be angry at Dad and the life he’d made for them. She and Dean will fight, and he won’t beg her to come home and she won’t ask him to stay. As she falls asleep, she realizes that neither of them had said a word to each other since she’d found him in the hall. Maybe there really isn’t anything to say.

 

=//=

 

Sam’s not sleeping. She’s warm, and she’s safe—finally—and she’s freshly showered and fed, but every time her eyes close she’s back in that little cage and a psycho redneck with a shotgun is leering down at her, so she’s definitely not sleeping.

Dean’s not sleeping either, she can tell. His breathing is too even, which means he wants her to _think_ he’s asleep, but he’s really keeping watch. Making sure she doesn’t disappear when his back is turned again.

Sometimes she wishes he’d take away her choices.

He never will. She knows this. He’ll just keep watch instead, chasing off the bad things and pushing her toward the good things with a laughing smile and sad eyes. She wonders if he notices that she always comes back. She wonders if it would really be so bad to just stay.

“Dean?”

He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t wait either, moving immediately from his bed to hers and wrapping her up in strong arms and the smell of home. She falls asleep with his warm breath in her hair and his heart beating beneath her cheek.

 

=//=

 

Sam hasn’t seen him yet, but she’s sure as hell heard him.

There aren’t too many muscle cars among the Prius-loving Stanford crowd, but even if there were a million, she’d still know that throaty purr anywhere—the only lullaby that ever could sing her to sleep.

So she waits. Watches. Pauses after rounding corners and lingers just a little longer in empty shadows. Wonders if she should be angry, if he thinks she can’t take care of herself. Wonders if this is the only hunt that ever brings him to California. Wonders if this time he’ll catch her.

He doesn’t. Again. He’s still there, though, for a while, flash of black at the edge of her sight, green eyes steady watching, touching with his gaze where he can’t with his hands. She stops pausing, steadily paces through shadows. Rejoins her friends and laughs out loud. Studies, works, drinks, smiles, eats, sleeps, and clutches at normal like it’s real. And at night when she’s burning and haunted, she slips fingers that are too long and narrow between her thighs and refuses to pretend.

When she comes it’s to green eyes and the fading lullaby purr of an engine.

 

=//=

 

Dean thinks for a minute, while watching Sam kiss Sarah, that he’s going to be spending the night alone in disco hell doing the hustle with Jose Cuervo. But Sammy slides into the car a few short minutes later, shutting the door quietly and nodding for him to drive. He refuses to feel relieved.

Fifty miles of brooding Sam in the passenger seat and he asks if she wants to go back. Two days later, in a dingy motel in West Virginia, he asks her again. A week later they’re at a tiny table in a forgettable diner and he asks her again. Eventually she’ll answer him.

She never answers until finally she does. He wakes up in the middle of the night to find her sitting on his bed. Her legs are curled under her but her back is to him. He wonders how long she’s been there, staring out the open window into the parking lot. Her voice is quiet when she speaks, and he’s not surprised that she knew he was awake.

“Sarah was the most normal girl I’ve ever met.”

Dean braces for impact—the double blow of “she’s what I’ve always wanted” and “I’m leaving.” Maybe it’s better this way. Sam can settle down and be happy and safe. She’ll be free. And he can…do something. He’ll still watch out for her, just to make sure she’s safe, but she can live the life she’s always wanted. And if middle America still doesn’t think that two girls in love is “normal” it’s still better than what they’d think of him. He makes himself ask again.

She looks at him, face unreadable, and then turns back to stare out the window before saying “I don’t want to go back, Dean.” She’s silent for a moment. “Sarah was the most normal girl I’ve ever met.”

“Hey, Sammy, it’s okay. I get it. I’ll drive you back.” He just wants this over with. He’s completely unprepared when she stops him from getting up with a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m not done. Sarah was normal and her life still got fucked up by monsters. She’s no more safe than we are, wasn’t even before she found out what’s really out there. She had everything I thought I wanted, but…I have something she doesn’t have.”

“…What?”

She turns to face him, and he’s suddenly lit up by that crooked bright Sammy-smile. “You.”

He’s doesn’t want her adoration, can’t stomach a tired platitude being the last thing she says to him, and tries to brush it off. “You know you got me, Sammy.” He tries to get up again, but she’s faster, shifting and sliding until she’s straddling his torso and the thin motel sheet is the only thing separating their bodies. Sam’s only wearing a tank top and panties, and Dean’s surrounded by smooth honey-colored skin that he’s touched so many times before, but never like this.

He has no idea what to do with his hands.

Sam doesn’t seem to notice though. She’s perched above him, watching his face. He can see her brain working, and she’s still smiling. When she finally moves, it’s to plant her hands on either side of his head and lean forward, bringing their faces closer together until he can feel her breath across his mouth. She probably can’t feel his though, because he stopped breathing three minutes ago.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life shutting myself off from what I want while I chase something that doesn’t exist.” She kisses him.

Her hair is just long enough to tickle his face, but all he can feel is her mouth against his and all he can taste is his own loneliness Fuck her for leaving him with this. He shoves and rolls, landing on his feet between the two beds, facing her across far too little rumpled cotton. Her fighting stance mirrors his, but she doesn’t look angry—just determined.

“Come on, Sammy—you don’t want this.”

She’s quiet. Her smile is gone, but she’s still staring at him, no confusion or anger or desperation in her eyes. She’s just looking at him like he’s a puzzle she wants to solve. Her body relaxes and she stands to her full height, comfortable on her legs, and she pulls her tank top off over her head, drops it to the floor beside her, then stoops to pull off her panties, and she’s standing naked before him.

Dean’s never gotten so hard so fast in his life. He can’t stop himself from sweeping his eyes up and down her long body, memorizing the sight of her, the perfect composition of moles and scars and muscles, and he knows he’ll never forget what she looks like in this moment.

She waits until he meets her eyes again, and he expects to see her smirking at his reaction, but she’s just smiling sweetly, waiting for him to be ready before she speaks.

“I don’t want normal, and you’ve always kept me safe. All I need is you. So, come on, Dean.” She lowers herself onto the bed, stretches a hand out to him and waits, and there has never been any part of him that isn’t hardwired to come when she calls. He falls down beside her on the bed, pulling her into his arms tasting her, and this time only her, again.

His hands are sure, skimming across her skin as he tries to touch all of her at once. He wishes briefly that he’s had the chance to undress her slowly, unwrap her like a present. And then he thinks, _next time_, and he can’t stifle the happy laugh that bubbles out of him at the thought that there’ll be a next time. Then Sam’s laughing too, and they’re twisted up together, mouths and fingers and hands and arms and legs and feet and toes touching and tickling and teasing, and they just can’t get close enough.

Her laughter cuts off into a sigh when his mouth closes around a nipple, and playful hands suddenly turn serious. His cock is hard and leaking against her belly when she wraps her hand around it, long fingers spreading precome up and down the shaft as she jacks him off slowly. “Next time,” she whispers in his ear, “I’m going to suck your cock ‘til you come down my throat, then I’m going to lick you hard again. Then I’m gonna ride you until we both pass out.” And, fuck if that’s just not fair. There is no way in hell this is going to last much longer.

He slips fingers into her, checking to see if she’s ready, and he can’t resist teasing her a little, making long slow strokes along her slit and dipping inside and out too quickly to do her any good. She’s swollen and pink and he can see the moisture starting to slick the insides of her spread thighs, legs splayed wantonly over the bed. She almost looks relaxed but he can see her fists are clenched and he can feel the muscles in her pussy fluttering against his fingers. He rolls her clit between his finger and thumb and shivers and the sound she makes, but then she’s rolling over and away from him, leaning over the side of the bed and giving him a view of her tight ass. He slowly strokes his dick, waiting for her to pop back up with whatever she’s reaching to grab, only a little surprised when it’s a condom. Sam’s a planner, after all.

She knocks his hand away from his cock and giggles out a “let’s not take any unnecessary chances here,” as she slides the condom on, and then she’s sinking down on his dick and he’s not breathing again. She rides him until they’re both gasping and he feels like he’s trying to breathe _through_ her skin. She’s panting above him and he wants to come _so bad_, so he starts talking. “Come on, Sammy, come on. Gotta come, come on, baby, come on. Fuck, Sammy, come on—” and finally she’s shaking and coming in his arms and he’s shooting inside her, filling the condom in bursts, and she’s slumped against his chest, trying to catch her breath. He pulls her down so she’s laying by his side, wraps her tightly in his arms and holds her as they both fall asleep.

 

=//=

 

In his dreams, Dean doesn’t remember the smell of smoke or the heat from the fire. He doesn’t remember Dad shouting or sirens wailing or neighbors clogging the streets.

He remembers cool, damp grass under his bare feet.

He remembers wondering if Sammy was cold, and holding the squalling bundle of baby and blankets as tight as he could.

He’s been holding on to her ever since.

 

=//=

 

She really doesn’t know what Dean had been so worried about.

The first day of school is no big deal. She’s colored and eaten a snack and listened to a story and planted a seed. Plus, last recess is coming up and Sam wants to try the slide. She’d spotted it from the backseat of the Impala when they’d driven up to the school this morning. It’s pretty tall, but Dean has taught her to be brave and Dean can probably go on any slide in the world.

When recess comes, it turns out that a lot of kids want to use the slide, so Sammy gets in line and waits for her turn. She counts the steps up to the top, but she stops at seven because that’s a lot of steps and she doesn’t want to get scared.

The line’s getting shorter and she starts getting butterflies in her tummy. She thinks about going to play on the swings instead, but Dean told her that the butterflies in her tummy only flutter when they can’t breathe, so if she just takes a few big breaths, they’ll settle down and go back to sleep. She takes four breaths and it’s her turn to climb the ladder.

Her foot is on the first step (and there are a _lot _more than seven!) when she hears a familiar engine. She twists her body, both feet firmly planted on the bottom step and hands wrapped tightly around the rails, ready to keep climbing, and looks around for Dean. He’s standing by the fence and when he sees her looking, he calls, “Come on, Sammy!”

She lets go and jumps off the step, waves goodbye to her teacher and her new friends and runs into Dean’s waiting arms. She always comes when he calls.


End file.
